


Arrow

by iluvaqt



Series: Avengers ABCs [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Jewelry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-11 21:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4452182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iluvaqt/pseuds/iluvaqt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Clint it was his weapon of choice, a tool deadly in his skilled hands. For Natasha it meant something else. It was a symbol of freedom. A choice that brought about rebirth. A new life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arrow

Edit: Thank you to Purple_Moon123 for the proof. 

**A is for Arrow** (Inspired by Alexabout) 

The arrow had become a powerful talisman for Natasha. It meant so many things; hope, acceptance, family, love. Above all, it meant life.

The arrow at one time, tasked to end her life had instead only torn the comb from her elaborate updo as she sat in front of her ornate dressing table, pulling on her silk stockings for her dinner date. She was readying herself to accompany the French Foreign Relations minister, who was also her mark. The precise trajectory of the arrow captured its target, harmlessly spilling her long flame red hair around her shoulders and anchoring the hair piece to the top of the mirror frame.

She froze only for a second before she ducked for cover and used the mirror to look at the small hole in the floor to ceiling window, which signified her attacker’s approximate location. She was further startled by the phone near the bed when it rang and it was in that same moment she noticed the laser point trained on the center of her chest. How had he changed location so quickly? She picked up the handset and forced her breathing to remain steady. She was a nineteen-year-old, playing at twenty five, working for an elite covert branch of the reformed KGB (now Russian Foreign Intelligence). She was trained to always think on her feet, never succumb to panic but this close to the end of her mission, her adrenaline was already running high.

“You’ve been compromised. Your cover’s blown. What do you do?” a calm, baritone voice asked her. “If you die today, how will you be remembered? What will your legacy be, Natalia Romanoff?”

Natasha heard loud voices outside the door and looked to the window. The assassin had to be in a vantage point in the building across from the Embassy. Would he still take her out if she tried to run? Was he the one responsible for blowing her cover or was he simply her warning? What was in it for him to warn her?

“How long do I have and what do you want from me?” she asked unable to keep the sneer from her voice.

All men wanted something from her. For some it was her beauty, for others it was her youth. Her handlers wanted her skill and her body. She had been recruited by a prestigious ballet school when she was six. Her parents were poor and were so excited to have her natural poise recognised despite her young age. She was dancing in national performances by age 11 and at age 13, her life was irrevocably changed when many families in her neighborhood lost their lives, including her parents after ICBMs strongly suspected to be American, dropped from the sky.

Far from home and orphaned, she succumbed to her grief and her performances suffered. She was quickly dropped by the company, and after her meager saving dried up, she found herself on the street. The local shelter gave her the occasional meal but most of the time she had to fend for herself. The memories surrounding her recruitment to the Red Room Academy were always just out of reach. What she did remember was that she’d been desperate dire circumstances, angry and eager for revenge. She wanted to join the Soviet Armed Forces to protect her homeland. The training was brutal, but she’d known various kinds of pain already from an early age with bloodied and bruised toes, sprained and torn muscles, and cruel discipline. It was only later that the true cost of her enlistment weighed on her. Girls she had grown up with, danced with, the weak ones were killed at the hands of others. Troublemakers were publicly beaten, repeat offenders disappeared. There was no room for failure or deserters. They relentlessly drilled her until she could kill without hesitation. And her position meant there was no room for remorse. She had wanted to protect Soviet families, parents and children from the fate she suffered but there would be no family for her. Her taskmasters took her, shaped her, conditioned her to be loyal only to Soviet supremacy. They engineered her to become their elite assassin, and following her sterilization and graduation, she resigned herself to accept who she had chosen to become.

Until now. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had ever cared to ask her what she wanted for herself. And it was the first time in years, she’d heard anyone call her by her birth name. It forced her to hesitate in her actions, choose to think over what she’d been trained to do. It caused her to second-guess her mission.

The doors burst open and men with guns out, opened fire in her direction. She dove for the couch and crawled her way to the balcony. Dressed in nothing but her satin gown and underwear, she fled into the night, her only weapons a thigh belt of small daggers.

She had found a phone and called her handler. He advised that she complete her objective, their superiors would not tolerate her failure. Without means, she stole clothing from a store and broke into an apartment whose tenant looked to be away. She slept fitfully.

The next day, she woke to find a man in body armor sitting in her bedroom. She threw the knife under her pillow instinctively at his uncovered head and he neatly caught it using a book that was on the window seat beside him.

“And you’re out,” he said calmly. “I relieved you of your knife belt that you had hidden under your robe on the night stand, but it felt a little too invasive not to mention unnecessarily risky to attempt to disarm you in your sleep.” He smirked at her. Not in an "I’m a better assassin than you, but I can appreciate a beautiful woman in bed", smirk.

His relaxed, almost smug demeanor set her on edge and made her twitchy. Then her thoughts caught up to her instincts and she recognized his voice. “The phone call. Who hired you? Won’t they be annoyed to learn you’re fraternizing with the enemy?”

“They don’t just pay me to do the job, they pay me to think. What about you?” he said, propping his ankle over his knee, like he had all the time in the world.

He tossed something small at her and she rolled off the bed, her bra strap falling from her shoulder in her haste. She didn’t fix it and she crouched behind the bed, peeking over at him. He looked even more amused.

“Everything we know about you is on that,” he said nodding at the small black object, lying innocently on the bed covers. “You’re my mission. The directive, your permanent retirement. I think you have the potential to be more than what they made you. I think you have the potential to save lives instead of ending them. I’ll give you a couple days to think about it.”

When she scrambled to retrieve it, she looked up to find him gone. She got dressed and headed for the nearest internet cafe to open the flash drive. What she discovered showed her that all she had once believed was a lie. American bombs hadn’t killed her parents. The Soviets used it as news cover story to hide the fact that an explosion in their secret weapons facility had killed civilians and to hide the truth from the world at large. Obviously their efforts had been in vain. The Americans knew the truth.

Orphaned at age 6, not 13, she and 27 other girls had been taken from orphanages across Russia and put into The Red Room Academy in Stalingrad. Her memories of dance school had been implanted. Her performances on stage, all covers for her missions to aid in the assassination of targets, liabilities to Soviet interests. Everything she thought she knew about herself were lies manufactured to insure her loyalty to her handlers.

The last file came with a personal note from her would-be enemy turned informant.

//This is the man they want you to eliminate. Study his connections, his political standing, his interests. His family. Then ask yourself why. If you want out, don’t carry out your mission. We can give you another life. A chance to use the skills you have to protect, instead of being their Black Widow.//

Clint Barton vouched for her. Director Fury made him responsible for her integration into S.H.I.E.L.D and for the next 10 years they were partners. She’d saved lives as he promised she would. She didn’t always complete her objectives, sometimes she failed to protect her POI but she was never again the harbinger of death. Over the years she had saved his life, and he had saved hers. They were an unstoppable team, and she owed it all to the arrow he hadn’t used to kill her.

So a year ago, when she opened her colorfully wrapped birthday gift, expecting a child-made keepsake and found something else entirely she was taken aback. Inside the white Tiffany box, nestled on a blue pillow was a platinum necklace with a tiny arrow, dotted with small diamonds, she stared at Clint, his wife and their children, utterly speechless. Laura Barton had promptly hugged her warmly and smiled at her brilliantly.

“Before you say it’s too much, making sure my husband comes home from every mission they send you guys on, has no price tag to me. You’re a part of our family, Natasha. And this is only a small token of what you mean to us. Happy Birthday.”

“I picked it,” a small voice chirped.

Natasha picked up Lila, Barton’s daughter and her smallest friend, and returned her fierce hug, unable to stop the sheen that was forming in her eyes. She smiled at the child. “And it’s perfect, just like you.”

The arrow is her talisman and she wears it above her heart.


End file.
